Call of Duty

Call Of Duty: Black Ops III: The Kotaku Review

There are too many Call of Duty games. Let me clarify that statement: There are too many Call of Duty games in Call of Duty: Black Ops III. In my initial impressions of the single-player experience of the latest installment of Activision’s annual military shooter series, I celebrated what Treyarch had achieved with an extra…

YouTuber Makes Cool Anime Emblems For Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

For many Call of Duty players, many of the first 5 hours of play time are spent in the emblem creator. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK YouTuber PrimalLIQUID has been putting together some great anime-themed icons to rock on the battlefield, including the Pikachu above. If you’ve ever spent more than 5 minutes…

It’s Always Fun To Stop Shooting And Let Call Of Duty Play Itself

Like most Call of Duty games, Black Ops 3’s story campaign is a highly scripted, tightly controlled experience. Go here, stand next to that, shoot those guys. Sometimes, in fact, you don’t even have to pull the trigger. As I made my way through Blops 3’s opening levels, I reached the first Official Call Of…

Call of Duty: Black Ops III‘s Most Brutal Scene Haunts Me

Lately I’ve been having nightmares about robots. Spoilers for the end of the first mission of Call of Duty: Black Ops III follow. It’s strange. I thought it would have been the zombies. My mind’s been fertile soil for the seeds of bad dreams since I was a small child, and over the years I’ve…

Black Ops 3 Launched A Bit Broken On PC

Call of Duty campaigns are a guilty pleasure of mine, so I was excited last week to fire up Black Ops 3 on PC. Ten minutes later, I’d shut it down, and a sad sense of déjà vu was washing over me. It was a year ago that I was writing about how Advanced Warfare’s…

My Favorite Black Ops III Feature So Far Is Theater Mode

Because official screenshots wouldn’t dare get us this close to Jeff Goldblum’s majestic virtuosity, there is Theater mode. Giving players free access to gameplay footage and virtual camera controls is nothing new—games that pride themselves on their visual flair have been letting players show off their stuff for years. Perhaps one day it will be…

Remember: People Made This Game, And They Want You To Have Fun With It

Fire up Black Ops III for the first time and you’ll be presented with this message. It sticks out amongst the corporate logos and splash screens, but it’s also a nice little touch. Like, everyone knows that games are made by large teams of human beings, but do we really? A lot of fans treat…

Activision Blizzard Launches Film And TV Studio

You might think that, after this week’s surprise $5.9 billion acquisition, Activision might be out of big announcements to make. But it turns out they’ve got at least one more. The mega-publisher announced today that they’re launching a studio for film and TV projects in their huge stable of francises, which includes Call of Duty,…

Black Ops III: Last-Gen vs Current-Gen

You’d think from hanging around the internet that by 2015 most people would be playing Black Ops III on a PC, Xbox One or PS4. But remember, there are still a lotta folks out there with last-gen hardware. Now is the time to be reminded of their predicament. When the latest consoles were still brand…

The First Five Minutes Of Black Ops III‘s Hidden Arcade Game

Continuing the proud tradition established in the original Black Ops, Black Ops III has a hidden arcade mini-game, only it’s not really all that mini. If you’d rather find it yourself, close your eyes and ears. And maybe don’t read on. With news of the hidden game splashing about the internet briefly yesterday, Call of…

Black Ops III‘s Solo Experience Is Surprisingly Deep

There are certain things I’ve come to expect from a single player Call of Duty experience—bombastic set pieces, an in-your-face message, some sort of betrayal and a slow motion enemy take down. Black Ops III delivers three out of four, plus a whole lot more. The latest installment of Activision’s biggest franchise that doesn’t involve…

No Wonder Call of Duty Isn’t Ditching Last-Gen Consoles

Black Ops 3 won’t have a campaign mode on Xbox 360 and PS3, and the game’s frame rate will fluctuate between 30 and 60 frames-per-second. But here’s why they’re making a version for aging hardware: Activision’s revealed there are still 12 million monthly active users for the three-year-old Black Ops II. Damn Call of Duty…

Treyarch’s announced that modding and map creation tools are officially coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, with a closed alpha test scheduled for next March. There will be an open beta at a later date, however, and they’re going to include things like unranked server browsers to make mod searching easier.

The Week In Games: Something Something Call Of Duty

Is it Call of Duty week already? Man, I could really use a sandwich. If it weren’t readily evident from the release of the game’s official live-action trailer (starring the Human Torch until that memory gets scrubbed from my brain), Black Ops III comes out this week. Friday, for some godawful reason that I am…

That Time Call of Duty Let You Shoot Up An Airport

Few games give you the option to skip over a mission before you play it, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s controversial “No Russian” mission is one of them. Even today, the stage that made players a terrorist remains shocking. Yes, that actually happened. Here’s the image greeting players before the single-player campaign started:…

Competitive Call of Duty Star Says Leaving Twitch Is His “Biggest Regret” 

A year ago, Matthew “NaDeSHoT” Haag announced that he would be streaming Call of Duty on competitive gaming site MLG.TV exclusively in a deal that the New York Times once called “lucrative.” Last weekend, the former top player looked back on that decision—and came pretty close to calling it a mistake. Haag, who has over…

Black Ops III‘s Free Run Mode Channels Mirror’s Edge And Titanfall

Not only does Call of Duty : Black Ops III have all of its campaign content unlocked from the start, it has content that looks as if it comes from other games unlocked from the start as well. Check out the new multiplayer parkour-flavored “Free Run” mode. Introduced in yesterday’s live stream alongside the new Loyalty…

All Games Should Unlock Every Level Right Away

Super Mario 4D Universe—or whatever the next one will be called—should come with every single level in the Mushroom Constitutional Monarchy unlocked. The next Grand Theft Auto should make all of its missions immediately playable in the very first minute. Uncharted 4 should let me jump into the middle of Nathan Drake’s adventures as soon…

If you’d like, you can now digitally pre-order Black Ops 3 for Xbox One. For still unspecified reasons, it had been removed from the service, and neither Activision nor Microsoft had a decent explanation why. Either way, it’s back. Contact the author at [email protected]

Call of Duty Ditches ‘Archaic’ Campaign Unlock System

Most games force you to play things in a certain order—and that gating can be a drag in certain situations. Black Ops 3, however, is trying something very different. As Eurogamer reports, Black Ops 3 will let players go through the campaign in whatever order they’d like. Wanna start the game right at the end?…